Fast food and prepackaged meals are quick and easy, and when you're busy, it can seem like a good idea to make your family meals grab-and-go. However, these choices don't have the same nutritional value as wholesome foods and home-cooked meals. Planning a nutritional menu that your kids will eat doesn't have to be difficult, and you can do a whole week's worth of menus at once.
Step 1
On a piece of lined paper, draw a grid with seven rows down the side for the days of the week and six columns along the top labeled breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and bedtime snack.
Step 2
Use highlighters throughout this process to ensure you plan balanced meals: green for vegetables, orange for fruit, yellow for whole grains, pink for meats and other proteins, and blue for dairy. Anything that doesn't fit under those categories need not be highlighted.
Step 3
Enlist your child's help if he's old enough; he will be more interested in eating healthy food if he helps create the menu. To make things simple, limit choices to two at a time; for instance, he can pick broccoli or asparagus as a green vegetable for a particular meal.
Step 4
Start with each day's breakfast and write down a whole-grain food, a dairy food and a fruit or fruit juice that your child enjoys. It's no big deal if she likes routines and wants to eat the same breakfast every day, but if she likes variety, mix it up.
Step 5
In the "morning snack" column, write down a combination of dairy and fruit for each day; for example, combine milk, yogurt or cheese with applesauce or fresh or canned fruit.
Step 6
Choose a lunch combination for each day of the week. A well-rounded lunch for a child includes a serving each of protein, vegetables, fruit, whole grains and dairy. Don't make things too complicated. A sandwich can include the meat, vegetable and whole grains all at once.
Step 7
Write down some afternoon snack choices, picking two foods for each snack from these four food group choices: meat or other protein, vegetable or fruit, whole grains and dairy.
Step 8
Select a variety of foods for dinners, trying not to duplicate any choices more often than every three days or so. Dinner should include a protein, whole grains, a serving of milk or other dairy, and two vegetables or one vegetable and one fruit. You can keep it simple by grilling meat and steaming veggies rather than trying to concoct impressive dishes.
Step 9
Under the bedtime snack column, you could fill in the same choice every night: a cup of low-fat milk, which is all that most children need. For variety, add Ovaltine one night and serve warm milk with honey the next.
Tips and Warnings
- Many people think their children won't eat vegetables, but you can change that with your approach. If you're serving two vegetables, mix up the colors to be more appealing; rather than serving two green veggies, make one green and one yellow or red. Also, mix textures; offer cooked squash and a crisp green salad, for instance.
Things You'll Need
- Lined paper
- Pen
- Ruler
- Colored highlighters: yellow, green, blue, pink and orange
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